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lorilanefox 's review for:
From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death
by Caitlin Doughty
Have you ever wondered why we do what we do with our dearly departed loved ones? Having lost many family members over the years, I’ve questioned our death practices and why we are made to think by the American funeral industry that our options are limited and our choices aren’t really our own. We are told that embalming, fancy caskets, concrete liners, or impersonal cremation are our only options, yet this isn’t the truth.
The candor and curiosity with which author and mortician Caitlin Doughty approaches death rituals around the world is refreshing. Her opening chapter (my favorite) about an open-air, family attended, juniper-scented cremation in Crestone, Colorado, sets the tone as she takes the fear and mystery away from what happens when we die. While some of the death rituals she describes are certainly not for everyone (from sleeping with corpses in Indonesian house graves to dressing up and displaying human skulls who impart favors to devotees in Bolivia), Doughty’s respectful treatment and depiction of global death practices is oddly comforting. Perhaps with awareness and a little research we can choose “to find the good death” rather than succumb to the death-avoiding rituals widely promoted in our death-fearing culture. There is even a Mad-Libs style “Fill-in Fun: Your Death Plan!” section at the end of the book so that your family and friends can know your final wishes. I truly enjoyed this book.
The candor and curiosity with which author and mortician Caitlin Doughty approaches death rituals around the world is refreshing. Her opening chapter (my favorite) about an open-air, family attended, juniper-scented cremation in Crestone, Colorado, sets the tone as she takes the fear and mystery away from what happens when we die. While some of the death rituals she describes are certainly not for everyone (from sleeping with corpses in Indonesian house graves to dressing up and displaying human skulls who impart favors to devotees in Bolivia), Doughty’s respectful treatment and depiction of global death practices is oddly comforting. Perhaps with awareness and a little research we can choose “to find the good death” rather than succumb to the death-avoiding rituals widely promoted in our death-fearing culture. There is even a Mad-Libs style “Fill-in Fun: Your Death Plan!” section at the end of the book so that your family and friends can know your final wishes. I truly enjoyed this book.